Cookeville’s Haley Adams Leaves Rogue Invitational Field as Hyrox Becomes Her Focus

• Haley Adams, a nine-time CrossFit Games competitor who lives and trains in Cookeville, Tennessee, has withdrawn from the 2026 Rogue Invitational.
• Morning Chalk Up reports she has focused on Hyrox and finished her first race, in Mumbai, in 1:10.
• A Hyrox newcomer from CrossFit can expect a race of eight one-kilometer runs and eight stations, with no qualifying standard to enter.

A Games Veteran Tries a Different Kind of Hard

The news came in a roster update. As the field for the 2026 Rogue Invitational in Aberdeen, Scotland took shape, Haley Adams was one of the names that came off the list. Morning Chalk Up reported on October 5 that she withdrew without a public explanation, and that she had been focused on Hyrox. The same report says she finished her first Hyrox race in Mumbai in 1:10.

Adams is no newcomer to hard days. She has competed at nine CrossFit Games, three as a teenager and six as an individual, and she lives in Cookeville, Tennessee, home of the Mayhem Classic. In February she joined Red Bull’s athlete roster, a group that includes CrossFit and Hyrox athletes such as Noah Ohlsen. At the time she said she felt better than she had in a long time at that point of the year. Eight months later, her calendar has a different look.

Neither Adams nor her team has said that Hyrox is the reason she left the Invitational, and this article does not claim it is. The reported facts are that she withdrew, that she has been focused on Hyrox, and that she has a first finish on the board. That is enough to ask a question for any gym member in Tennessee or anywhere else: what does a first Hyrox look like for someone who has spent years in a CrossFit box?

What a First Hyrox Asks of a CrossFit Athlete

Hyrox is a race with a fixed script. Athletes run one kilometer, complete a station, and repeat the pattern eight times for a total of eight kilometers of running. The stations come in the same order at every event: SkiErg, sled push, sled pull, burpee broad jumps, rowing, farmers carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls. Divisions include Open, Pro, Doubles, Doubles Mixed, Relay, and age groups, and there are no qualifying times or cutoffs to enter.

A CrossFit athlete knows most of these movements, but the pacing is new. A typical CrossFit workout asks for a burst of effort and then ends. Hyrox asks for an effort that never lets up for about an hour or more. Some racers who wrote about the experience say the running takes more out of them than the stations. A Men’s Health writer who raced in New York in 2024 heard from a first-timer that the hardest part of the race was running, and a Women’s Health writer who raced in Berlin said the sled pulls were harder than she expected.

Time is the number every newcomer wants to place. Adams finished in 1:10, and the source does not say which division she entered. For scale, results from the Mumbai weekend show the Pro Men’s winner finishing in 59:28 and the Pro Women’s winner in 1:00:18, with a median Pro Women’s finish of 1:41:28 in a field of 62. Those results are provisional, and they do not show Adams’ entry. A Berlin racer who wrote about her first Hyrox said sub-hour doubles finishes count as elite.

The takeaway for a Games athlete is also a takeaway for anyone with a regular gym habit. Fitness built from lifting and short workouts carries over to the stations. The running piece needs its own plan. BoxRox ran a piece this month in which Ohlsen breaks down the differences between CrossFit and Hyrox, a sign of how often the question comes up.

Newcomers who want to try the format have an easy entry point. Solo racers can enter the Open division, and anyone who prefers company can race Doubles with a friend and split the station work. Loads are adjusted for men and women. A first-timer can imagine the course: eight kilometers of running, eight stations, and a finish line inside a convention hall instead of out on a trail.

Why the Crossover Keeps Growing in Tennessee and Beyond

Cookeville sits about 80 miles east of Nashville, and the Mayhem Classic is held there, which makes it Adams’ home turf. Nashville, an hour or so west, is the home base of another Games athlete who made the same switch this fall.

Her move fits a pattern. Sydney Wells, a 2023 Games athlete in Nashville, told Rox Lyfe this month that she dropped her three-day CrossFit split to commit to Hyrox. Brooke Wells, a ten-time Games veteran, found a new race in Hyrox too. In each story, the athletes describe the same attraction: a standard format that makes a time in one city comparable to a time in another, and a reason to run again.

For the gym member who has never raced, the numbers are worth a look. Hyrox keeps adding US stops, and the sport reported more than 12,000 competitors at its first Boston weekend in September 2025. The Boston Convention and Exhibition Center hosts the series again from October 8 to 11. The reports do not say where Adams will race next. A nine-time Games athlete finished her first Hyrox in 1:10, and a newcomer can set a goal on the same course.

The reports include no comment from Adams on the switch. The questions for her are easy to list: how she trained for the running, which station gave her the most trouble, and what a 1:10 finish told her about the next one.